1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a cooking utensil, and more particularly, to a frying pan with an articulable handle which can be mated with a second frying pan with a fixed handle to flip foods without the intermediate transfer of the food from the frying pan to another frying pan or dish.
2. Description of the Related Art
When cooking an omelette or other similar food in currently available frying pans, utensils are usually necessary to turn the food over within the frying pan. Quite often, the utensils damage the food when turned over in this manner and affect the final presentation of the food. The present invention addresses this shortcoming by providing a pair of nestable frying pans, one pan having an articulable handle, that permit a cook to flip food within the pans without the need for additional flipping utensils thereby eliminating possible food damage.
The prior art teaches numerous cooking pan configurations for invertably placing one pan of a pair of frying pans on top of the other. U.S. Pat. No. 3,007,595 to Remley describes a pair of hingeably matable frying pans which can be joined via a mating hinge best seen in FIG. 6 of Remley. The two frying pans facilitate the multi-sided cooking of articles placed therein, and the frying pans may be segmented into various cooking portions. However, the Remley reference does not teach or suggest the mating of a pair of handles, one of such handles being rotatable so as to maintain the correct angular relation of the handle to the frying pan in either the original or inverted positions.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,722,173 to Cunningham discloses a matable pair of frying pans but discloses no rotationally movable or matable handle arrangement. Likewise, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,177,487 and 310,365 to Howlett and Bock, respectively, also fail to disclose the novel rotatable and matable handle arrangement such as that used in the present invention.
These known constructions provide fixed handle frying pan pairs usable either together, i.e. one pan nested atop the other, or as separate frying pans. The handles are fixedly mounted to the frying pan in a substantially perpendicular orientation to the side wall of the frying pan and may form a single graspable handle when the pan are used together. In addition, nestable frying pans articulable about a fixed handle, e.g. commercial-type waffle irons are also known. Here too, however, the handle is fixedly mounted in a substantially perpendicular orientation with respect to the side wall of the pan. None of the known cooking apparatus combine nestable frying pans where one pan has an articulable handle which combines with a fixed handle on the other pan to form a single grippable handle used to rotate nested cooking pans while maintaining the upward orientation of the frying pan handle.